A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa (1858-1864)

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provisions, by means of this boat, being thus disappointed, we turnedback with the intention of carrying another up to the same spot; and,in order to find level ground for this, we passed across from theShire at Malango to the upper part of the stream Lesungwe. A fine,active, intelligent fellow, called Pekila, guided us, and wasremarkable as almost the only one of the population left with anyspirit in him. The depressing effect which the slave-hunting scourgehas upon the native mind, though little to be wondered at, is sad,very sad to witness. Musical instruments, mats, pillows, mortars forpounding meal, were lying about unused, and becoming the prey of thewhite ants. With all their little comforts destroyed, the survivorswere thrown still further back into barbarism.

It is of little importance perhaps to any but travellers to noticethat in occupying one night a well-built hut, which had been shut upfor some time, the air inside at once gave us a chill, and an attackof fever; both of which vanished when the place was well-ventilatedby means of a fire. We have frequently observed that lighting a fireearly in the mornings, even in the hottest time of the year, givesfreshness to the whole house, and removes that feeling of closenessand langour, which a hot climate induces.

On the night of the 1st July, 1863, several loud peals of thunderawoke us; the moon was shining brightly, and not a cloud to be seen.All the natives remarked on the clearness of the sky at the time, andnext morning said, "We thought it was God" (Morungo).

On arriving at the ship on the 2nd July, we found a despatch fromEarl Russell, containing instructions for the withdrawal of theExpedition. The devastation caused by slave-hunting and famine layall around. The labour had been as completely swept away from theGreat Shire Valley, as it had been from the Zambesi, whereverPortuguese intrigue or power extended. The continual forays ofMariano had spread ruin and desolation on our south-east as far asMount Clarendon.

While this was going on in our rear, the Tette slave-hunters from theWest had stimulated the Ajawa to sweep all the Manganja off the hillson our East; and slaving parties for this purpose were still passingthe Shire above the Cataracts. In addition to the confession of theGovernor of Tette, of an intention to go on with this slaving inaccordance with the counsel of his elder brother at Mosambique, wehad reason to believe that slavery went on under the eye of hisExcellency, the Governor-General himself; and this was subsequentlycorroborated by our recognizing two women at Mosambique who had livedwithin a hundred yards of the Mission-station at Magomero. They werewell known to our attendants, and had formed a part of a gang ofseveral hundreds taken to Mosambique by the Ajawa at the very timewhen his Excellency was entertaining English officers with anti-slavery palavers. To any one who understands how minute theinformation is, which Portuguese governors possess by means of theirown slaves, and through gossiping traders who seek to curry theirfavour, it is idle to assert that all this slaving goes on withouttheir approval and connivance.

If more had been wanted to prove the hopelessness of producing anychange in the system which has prevailed ever since our allies, thePortuguese, entered the country, we had it in the impunity with whichthe freebooter, Terera, who had murdered Chibisa, was allowed tocarry on his forays. Belchoir, another marauder, had been checked,but was still allowed to make war, as they term slave-hunting.

Mr. Horace Waller was living for some five months on Mount Morambala,a position from which the whole process of the slave-trade, anddepopulation of the country around could be well noted. The mountainoverlooks the Shire, the beautiful meanderings of which aredistinctly seen, on clear days, for thirty miles. This river was forsome time supposed to be closed against Mariano, who, as a merematter of form, was declared a rebel against the Portuguese flag.When, however, it became no longer possible to keep up the sham, theriver was thrown open to him; and Mr. Waller has seen in a single dayfrom fifteen to twenty canoes of different sizes going down, ladenwith slaves, to the Portuguese settlements from the so-called rebelcamp. These cargoes were composed entirely of women and children.For three months this traffic was incessant, and at last, socompletely was the mask thrown off, that one of the officials came topay a visit to Bishop Tozer on another part of the same mountain,and, combining business with pleasure, collected payment for somecanoe work done for the Missionary party, and with this purchasedslaves from the rebels, who had only to be hailed from the bank ofthe river. When he had concluded the bargain he trotted the slavesout for inspection in Mr. Waller's presence. This official, SenhorMesquita, was the only officer who could be forced to live at theKongone. From certain circumstances in his life, he had fallen underthe power of the local Government; all the other Custom-houseofficers refused to go to Kongone, so here poor Mesquita must live ona miserable pittance--must live, and perhaps slave, sorely againsthis will. His name is not brought forward with a view of throwingany odium on his character. The disinterested kindness which heshowed to Dr. Meller, and others, forbids that he should be mentionedby us with anything like unkindness.

Under all these considerations, with the fact that we had not foundthe Rovuma so favourable for navigation at the time of our visit aswe expected, it was impossible not to coincide in the wisdom of ourwithdrawal; but we deeply regretted that we had ever given credit tothe Portuguese Government for any desire to ameliorate the conditionof the African race; for, with half the labour and expense anywhereelse, we should have made an indelible mark of improvement on asection of the Continent. Viewing Portuguese statesmen in the lightof the laws they have passed for the suppression of slavery and theslave-trade, and by the standard of the high character of our ownpublic men, it cannot be considered weakness to have believed in thesincerity of the anxiety to aid our enterprise, professed by theLisbon Ministry. We hoped to benefit both Portuguese and Africans byintroducing free-trade and Christianity. Our allies, unfortunately,cannot see the slightest benefit in any measure that does not implyraising themselves up by thrusting others down. The official paperof the Lisbon Government has since let us know "that their policy wasdirected to frustrating the grasping designs of the BritishGovernment to the dominion of Eastern Africa." We, who were on thespot, and behind the scenes, knew that feelings of privatebenevolence had the chief share in the operations undertaken forintroducing the reign of peace and good will on the Lakes and centralregions, which for ages have been the abodes of violence andbloodshed. But that great change was not to be accomplished. Thenarrow-minded would ascribe all that was attempted to the graspingpropensity of the English. But the motives that actuate many inEngland, both in public and private life, are much more noble thanthe world gives them credit for.

Seeing, then, that we were not yet arrived at "the good time coming,"and that it was quite impossible to take the "Pioneer" down to thesea till the floods of December, we made arrangements to screw the"Lady Nyassa" together; and, in order to improve the timeintervening, we resolved to carry a boat past the Cataracts a secondtime, sail along the eastern shore of the Lake, and round thenorthern end, and also collect data by which to verify theinformation collected by Colonel Rigby, that the 19,000 slaves, whogo through the Custom-house of Zanzibar annually, are chiefly drawnfrom Lake Nyassa and the Valley of the Shire.

Our party consisted of twenty natives, some of whom were Johanna men,and were supposed to be capable of managing the six oxen which drewthe small wagon with a boat on it. A team of twelve Cape oxen, witha Hottentot driver and leader, would have taken the wagon over thecountry we had to pass through with the greatest ease; but no soonerdid we get beyond the part of the road already made, than our driversencountered obstructions in the way of trees and gullies, which itwould have been a waste of time to have overcome by felling timberand hauling out the wagon by block and tackle purchases. The Ajawaand Manganja settled at Chibisa's were therefore sent for, and theytook the boat on their shoulders and carried it briskly, in a fewdays, past all the Cataracts except one; then coming to acomparatively still reach of the river, they took advantage of it tohaul her up a couple of miles. The Makololo had her then entirely incharge; for, being accustomed to rapids in their own country, nobetter boatmen could be desired. The river here is very narrow, andeven in what are called still places, the current is very strong, andoften obliged them to haul the boat along by the reeds on the banks,or to hand a tow-rope ashore. The reeds are full of cowitch(Dolichos pruriens), the pods of which are covered with what looks afine velvety down, but is in reality a multitude of fine prickles,which go in by the million, and caused an itching and stinging in thenaked bodies of those who were pulling the tow-rope, that made themwriggle as if stung by a whole bed of nettles. Those on boardrequired to be men of ready resource with oars and punting-poles, andsuch they were. But, nevertheless, they found, after attempting topass by a rock, round which the water rushed in whirls, that thewiser plan would be to take the boat ashore, and carry her past thelast Cataract. When this was reported, the carriers were called fromthe various shady trees under which they had taken refuge from thesun. This was midwinter, but the sun is always hot by day here,though the nights are cold. Five Zambesi men, who had been all theirlives accustomed to great heavy canoes,--the chief recommendation ofwhich is said to be, that they can be run against a rock with thefull force of the current without injury--were very desirous to showhow much better they could manage our boat than the Makololo; threejumped into her when our backs were turned, and two hauled her up alittle way; the tide caught her bow, we heard a shout of distress,the rope was out of their hands in a moment, and there she was,bottom upwards; a turn or two in an eddy, and away she went, like anarrow, down the Cataracts. One of the men in swimming ashore saved arifle. The whole party ran with all their might along the bank, butnever more did we see our boat.

The five performers in this catastrophe approached with penitentiallooks. They had nothing to say, nor had we. They bent down slowly,and touched our feet with both hands. "Ku kuata moendo"--"to catchthe foot"--is their way of asking forgiveness. It was so like whatwe have seen a little child do--try to bring a dish unbidden to itspapa, and letting it fall, burst into a cry of distress--that theywere only sentenced to go back to the ship, get provisions, and, inthe ensuing journey on foot, carry as much as they could, and thusmake up for the loss of the boat.

It was excessively annoying to lose all this property, and bedeprived of the means of doing the work proposed, on the east andnorth of the Lake; but it would have been like crying over spilt milkto do otherwise now than make the best use we could of our legs. Themen were sent back to the ship for provisions, cloth, and beads; andwhile they are gone, we may say a little of the Cataracts whichproved so fatal to our boating plan.

The Murchison Cataracts of the Shire river begin in 15 degrees 20minutes S., and end in lat. 15 degrees 55 minutes S., the differenceof latitude is therefore 35 minutes. The river runs in this spacenearly north and south, till we pass Malango; so the entire distanceis under 40 miles. The principal Cataracts are five in number, andare called Pamofunda or Pamozima, Morewa, Panoreba or Tedzane,Pampatamanga, and Papekira. Besides these, three or four smallerones might be mentioned; as, for instance, Mamvira, where in ourascent we first met the broken water, and heard that gushing soundwhich, from the interminable windings of some 200 miles of riverbelow, we had come to believe the tranquil Shire could never make.While these lesser cataracts descend at an angle of scarcely 20degrees, the greater fall 100 feet in 100 yards, at an angle of about45 degrees, and one at an angle of 70 degrees. One part of Pamozimais perpendicular, and, when the river is in flood, causes a cloud ofvapour to ascend, which, in our journey to Lake Shirwa, we saw at adistance of at least eight miles. The entire descent from the Upperto the Lower Shire is 1200 feet. Only on one spot in all thatdistance is the current moderate--namely, above Tedzane. The rest isall rapid, and much of it being only fifty or eighty yards wide, andrushing like a mill-race, it gives the impression of water-power,sufficient to drive all the mills in Manchester, running to waste.Pamofunda, or Pamozima, has a deep shady grove on its right bank.When we were walking alone through its dark shade, we were startledby a shocking smell like that of a dissecting-room; and on looking upsaw dead bodies in mats suspended from the branches of the trees, amode of burial somewhat similar to that which we subsequently sawpractised by the Parsees in their "towers of silence" at Poonah, nearBombay. The name Pamozima means, "the departed spirits or gods"--afit name for a place over which, according to the popular belief, thedisembodied souls continually hover.

The rock lowest down in the series is dark reddish-grey syenite.This seems to have been an upheaving agent, for the mica schistsabove it are much disturbed. Dark trappean rocks full of hornblendehave in many places burst through these schists, and appear innodules on the surface. The highest rock seen is a fine sandstone ofcloser grain than that at Tette, and quite metamorphosed where itcomes into contact with the igneous rocks below it. It sometimesgives place to quartz and reddish clay schists, much baked by heat.This is the usual geological condition on the right bank of theCataracts. On the other side we pass over masses of porphyritictrap, in contact with the same mica schists, and these probably giveto the soil the great fertility we observed. The great body of themountains is syenite. So much mica is washed into the river, that onlooking attentively on the stream one sees myriads of particlesfloating and glancing in the sun; and this, too, even at low water.

It was the 15th of August before the men returned from the ship,accompanied by Mr. Rae and the steward of the "Pioneer." Theybrought two oxen, one of which was instantly slaughtered to putcourage into all hearts, and some bottles of wine, a present fromWaller and Alington. We never carried wine before, but this wasprecious as an expression of kindheartedness on the part of thedonors. If one attempted to carry either wine or spirits, as abeverage, he would require a whole troop of followers for nothingelse. Our greatest luxury in travelling was tea or coffee. We neveronce carried sugar enough to last a journey, but coffee is alwaysgood, while the sugarless tea is only bearable, because of theunbearable gnawing feeling of want and sinking which ensues if webegin to travel in the mornings without something warm in thestomach. Our drink generally was water, and if cool, nothing canequal it in a hot climate. We usually carried a bottle of brandyrolled up in our blankets, but that was used only as a medicine; aspoonful in hot water before going to bed, to fend off a chill andfever. Spirits always do harm, if the fever has fairly begun; and itis probable that brandy-and-water has to answer for a good many ofthe deaths in Africa.

Mr. Rae had made gratifying progress in screwing together the "LadyNyassa." He had the zealous co-operation of three as fine steadyworkmen as ever handled tools; and, as they were noble specimens ofEnglish sailors, we would fain mention the names of men who are anhonour to the British navy--John Reid, John Pennell, and RichardWilson. The reader will excuse our doing so, but we desire to recordhow much they were esteemed, and how thankful we felt for their goodbehaviour. The weather was delightfully cool; and, with fullconfidence in those left behind, it was with light hearts we turnedour faces north. Mr. Rae accompanied us a day in front; and, as allour party had earnestly advised that at least two Europeans should beassociated together on the journey, the steward was at the lastmoment taken. Mr. Rae returned to get the "Lady Nyassa" ready forsea; and, as she drew less water than the "Pioneer," take her down tothe ocean in October. One reason for taking the steward is worthrecording. Both he and a man named King, {5} who, though only aleading stoker in the Navy, had been a promising student in theUniversity of Aberdeen, had got into that weak bloodless-lookingstate which residence in the lowlands without much to do or thinkabout often induces. The best thing for this is change and an activelife. A couple of days' march only as far as the Mukuru-Madse,infused so much vigour into King that he was able to walk brisklyback. Consideration for the steward's health led to his beingselected for this northern journey, and the measure was so completelysuccessful that it was often, in the hard march, a subject of regretthat King had not been taken too. A removal of only a hundred yardsis sometimes so beneficial that it ought in severe cases never to beomitted.

Our object now was to get away to the N.N.W., proceed parallel withLake Nyassa, but at a considerable distance west of it, and thus passby the Mazitu or Zulus near its northern end without contact--ascertain whether any large river flowed into the Lake from the west--visit Lake Moelo, if time permitted, and collect information aboutthe trade on the great slave route, which crosses the Lake at itssouthern end, and at Tsenga and Kota-kota. The Makololo were eagerto travel fast, because they wanted to be back in time to hoe theirfields before the rains, and also because their wives needed lookingafter.

In going in the first instance N.E. from the uppermost Cataract, wefollowed in a measure the great bend of the river towards the foot ofMount Zomba. Here we had a view of its most imposing side, the west,with the plateau some 3000 feet high, stretching away to its south,and Mounts Chiradzuru and Mochiru towering aloft to the sky. Fromthat goodly highland station, it was once hoped by the nobleMackenzie, who, for largeness of heart and loving disposition, reallydeserved to be called the "Bishop of Central Africa," that light andliberty would spread to all the interior. We still think it may be acentre for civilizing influences; for any one descending from thesecool heights, and stepping into a boat on the Upper Shire, can sailthree hundred miles without a check into the heart of Africa.

We passed through a tract of country covered with mopane trees, wherethe hard baked soil refused to let the usual thick crops of grassgrow; and here we came upon very many tracks of buffaloes, elephants,antelopes, and the spoor of one lion. An ox we drove along with us,as provision for the way, was sorely bitten by the tsetse. Theeffect of the bite was, as usual, quite apparent two days afterwards,in the general flaccidity of the muscles, the drooping ears, andlooks of illness. It always excited our wonder that we, who werefrequently much bitten too by the same insects, felt no harm fromtheir attacks. Man shares the immunity of the wild animals.

Finding a few people on the evening of the 20th of August, who weresupporting a wretched existence on tamarinds and mice, we ascertainedthat there was no hope of our being able to buy food anywhere nearerthan the Lakelet Pamalombe, where the Ajawa chief, Kainka, was nowliving; but that plenty could be found with the Maravi female chief,Nyango. We turned away north-westwards, and struck the stream Ribve-ribve, or Rivi-rivi, which rises in the Maravi range, and flows intothe Shire.

As the Rivi-rivi came from the N.W. we continued to travel along itsbanks, until we came to people who had successfully defendedthemselves against the hordes of the Ajawa. By employing the men ofone village to go forward and explain who we were to the next, wemanaged to prevent the frightened inhabitants from considering us afresh party of Ajawa, or of Portuguese slaving agents. Here they hadcultivated maize, and were willing to sell, but no persuasion couldinduce them to give us guides to the chieftainess, Nyango. Theyevidently felt that we were not to be trusted; though, as we had tocertify to our own character, our companions did not fail "to blowour own trumpet," with blasts in which modesty was quite out of thequestion. To allay suspicion, we had at last to refrain frommentioning the lady's name.

It would be wearisome to repeat the names of the villages we passedon our way to the north-west. One was the largest we ever saw inAfrica, and quite deserted, with the usual sad sight of manyskeletons lying about. Another was called Tette. We know threeplaces of this name, which fact shows it to be a native word; itseems to mean a place where the water rushes over rocks. A thirdvillage was called Chipanga (a great work), a name identical with theShupanga of the Portuguese. This repetition of names may indicatethat the same people first took these epithets in their traditionalpassage from north to south.

At this season of the year the nights are still cold, and the people,having no crops to occupy their attention, do not stir out till longafter the sun is up. At other times they are off to their fieldsbefore the day dawns, and the first sound one hears is the loudtalking of men and women, in which they usually indulge in the darkto scare off beasts by the sound of the human voice. When no work isto be done, the first warning of approaching day is the hemp-smoker'sloud ringing cough.

Having been delayed one morning by some negotiation about guides, whowere used chiefly to introduce us to other villages, we two whiteswalked a little way ahead, taking the direction of the stream. Themen having been always able to find out our route by the prints ofour shoes, we went on for a number of miles. This time, however,they lost our track, and failed to follow us. The path was wellmarked by elephants, hyenas, pallahs, and zebras, but for many a dayno human foot had trod it. When the sun went down a deserted hamletwas reached, where we made comfortable beds for ourselves of grass.Firing muskets to attract the attention of those who have strayed isthe usual resource in these cases. On this occasion the sound offirearms tended to mislead us; for, hearing shots next morning, along weary march led us only to some native hunters, who had beenshooting buffaloes. Returning to a small village, we met with somepeople who remembered our passing up to the Lake in the boat; theywere as kind as they could be. The only food they possessed wastamarinds, prepared with ashes, and a little cowitch meal. Thecowitch, as mentioned before, has a velvety brown covering of minuteprickles, which, if touched, enter the pores of the skin and cause apainful tingling. The women in times of scarcity collect the pods,kindle a fire of grass over them to destroy the prickles, then steepthe beans till they begin to sprout, wash them in pure water, andeither boil them or pound them into meal, which resembles our bean-meal. This plant climbs up the long grass, and abounds in all reedyparts, and, though a plague to the traveller who touches its pods, itperforms good service in times of famine by saving many a life fromstarvation. Its name here is Kitedzi.

Having travelled at least twenty miles in search of our party thatday, our rest on a mat in the best hut of the village was very sweet.We had dined the evening before on a pigeon each, and had eaten onlya handful of kitedzi porridge this afternoon. The good wife of thevillage took a little corn which she had kept for seed, ground itafter dark, and made it into porridge. This, and a cup of wildvegetables of a sweetish taste for a relish, a little boy brought inand put down, with several vigorous claps of his hands, in the mannerwhich is esteemed polite, and which is strictly enjoined on allchildren.

On the third day of separation, Akosanjere, the headman of thisvillage, conducted us forward to our party who had gone on to Nseze,a district to the westward. This incident is mentioned, not for anyinterest it possesses, apart from the idea of the people it conveys.We were completely separated from our men for nearly three days, andhad nothing wherewith to purchase food. The people were sorelypressed by famine and war, and their hospitality, poor as it was, didthem great credit, and was most grateful to us. Our own men hadbecome confused and wandered, but had done their utmost to find us;on our rejoining them, the ox was slain, and all, having been onshort commons, rejoiced in this "day of slaughter." Akosanjere was,of course, rewarded to his heart's content.

As we pursued our way, we came close up to a range of mountains, themost prominent peak of which is called Mvai. This is a great, bare,rounded block of granite shooting up from the rest of the chain. Itand several other masses of rock are of a light grey colour, withwhite patches, as if of lichens; the sides and summits are generallythinly covered with rather scraggy trees. There are several otherprominent peaks--one, for instance, still further north, calledChirobve. Each has a name, but we could never ascertain that therewas an appellation which applied to the whole. This fact, and ourwish to commemorate the name of Dr. Kirk, induced us afterwards, whenwe could not discover a particular peak mentioned to us formerly asMolomo-ao-koku, or Cock's-bill, to call the whole chain from the westof the Cataracts up to the north end of the Lake, "Kirk's Range."The part we slept at opposite Mvai was named Paudio, and wasevidently a continuation of the district of one of our stations onthe Shire, at which observations for latitude were formerly taken.

Leaving Paudio, we had Kirk's Range close on our left and at least3000 feet above us, and probably not less than 5000 feet above thesea. Far to our right extended a long green wooded country risinggradually up to a ridge, ornamented with several detached mountains,which bounded the Shire Valley. In front, northwards, lay a valleyas rich and lovely as we ever saw anywhere, terminating at themountains, which, stretched away some thirty miles beyond our rangeof vision and ended at Cape Maclear. The groups of trees had neverbeen subjected to the landscape gardener's art; but had been cut downmercilessly, just as suited the convenience of the cultivator; yetthe various combinations of open forest, sloping woodland, grassylawns, and massive clumps of dark green foliage along the runningstreams, formed as beautiful a landscape as could be seen on theThames. This valley is named Goa or Gova, and as we moved through itwe found that what was smooth to the eye was very much furrowed byrunning streams winding round innumerable knolls. These littlebrooklets came down from the range on our left, and the water wasdeliciously cool.

When we came abreast of the peak Chirobve, the people would no longergive us guides. They were afraid of their enemies, whose dwellingswe now had on our east; and, proceeding without any one to lead us,or to introduce us to the inhabitants, we were perplexed by all thepaths running zigzag across instead of along the valley. They hadbeen made by the villagers going from the hamlets on the slopes totheir gardens in the meadows below. To add to our difficulties, therivulets and mountain-torrents had worn gullies some thirty or fortyfeet deep, with steep sides that could not be climbed except atcertain points. The remaining inhabitants on the flank of the rangewhen they saw strangers winding from side to side, and oftenattempting to cross these torrent beds at impossible places, screamedout their shrill war-alarm, and made the valley ring with their wildoutcries. It was war, and war alone, and we were too deep down inthe valley to make our voices heard in explanation. Fortunately,they had burned off the long grass to a great extent. It only hereand there hid them from us. Selecting an open spot, we spent a nightregarded by all around us as slave-hunters, but were undisturbed,though the usual way of treating an enemy in this part of the countryis by night attack.

The nights at the altitude of the valley were cool, the lowesttemperature shown being 37 degrees; at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. it was 58degrees, about the average temperature of the day; at mid-day 82degrees, and sunset 70 degrees. Our march was very much hindered bythe imperfectly burned corn and grass stalks having fallen across thepaths. To a reader in England this will seem a very small obstacle.But he must fancy the grass stems as thick as his little finger, andthe corn-stalks like so many walkingsticks lying in one direction,and so supporting each other that one has to lift his feet up as whenwading through deep high heather. The stems of grass showed thecauses of certain explosions as loud as pistols, which are heard whenthe annual fires come roaring over the land. The heated air insideexpanding bursts the stalk with a loud report, and strews thefragments on the ground.

A very great deal of native corn had been cultivated here, and we sawbuffaloes feeding in the deserted gardens, and some women, who ranaway very much faster than the beasts did.

On the 29th, seeing some people standing under a tree by a village,we sat down, and sent Masego, one of our party, to communicate. Theheadman, Matunda, came back with him, bearing a calabash with waterfor us. He said that all the people had fled from the Ajawa, who hadonly just desisted from their career of pillage on being paid fivepersons as a fine for some offence for which they had commenced theinvasion. Matunda had plenty of grain to sell, and all the womenwere soon at work grinding it into meal. We secured an abundantsupply, and four milk goats. The Manganja goat is of a very superiorbreed to the general African animal, being short in the legs andhaving a finely-shaped broad body. By promising the Makololo that,when we no longer needed the milk, they should have the goats toimprove the breed of their own at home, they were induced to take thegreatest possible care of both goats and kids in driving andpasturing.

After leaving Matunda, we came to the end of the highland valley;and, before descending a steep declivity of a thousand feet towardsthe part which may be called the heel of the Lake, we had the boldmountains of Cape Maclear on our right, with the blue water at theirbase, the hills of Tsenga in the distance in front, and Kirk's Rangeon our left, stretching away northwards, and apparently becominglower. As we came down into a fine rich undulating valley, manyperennial streams running to the east from the hills on our left werecrossed, while all those behind us on the higher ground seemed tounite in one named Lekue, which flowed into the Lake.

After a long day's march in the valley of the Lake, where thetemperature was very much higher than in that we had just left, weentered the village of Katosa, which is situated on the bank of astream among gigantic timber trees, and found there a large party ofAjawa--Waiau, they called themselves--all armed with muskets. We satdown among them, and were soon called to the chiefs court, andpresented with an ample mess of porridge, buffalo meat, and beer.Katosa was more frank than any Manganja chief we had met, andcomplimented us by saying that "we must be his 'Bazimo' (good spiritsof his ancestors); for when he lived at Pamalombe, we lighted uponhim from above--men the like of whom he had never seen before, andcoming he knew not whence." He gave us one of his own large andclean huts to sleep in; and we may take this opportunity of sayingthat the impression we received, from our first journey on the hillsamong the villages of Chisunse, of the excessive dirtiness of theManganja, was erroneous. This trait was confined to the coolhighlands. Here crowds of men and women were observed to performtheir ablutions daily in the stream that ran past their villages; andthis we have observed elsewhere to be a common custom with bothManganja and Ajawa.

Before we started on the morning of the 1st September, Katosa sent anenormous calabash of beer, containing at least three gallons, andthen came and wished us to "stop a day and eat with him." Onexplaining to him the reasons for our haste, he said that he was inthe way by which travellers usually passed, he never stopped them intheir journeys, but would like to look at us for a day. On ourpromising to rest a little with him on our return, he gave us abouttwo pecks of rice, and three guides to conduct us to a subordinatefemale chief, Nkwinda, living on the borders of the Lake in front.

The Ajawa, from having taken slaves down to Quillimane andMosambique, knew more of us than Katosa did. Their muskets werecarefully polished, and never out of these slaver's hands for amoment, though in the chiefs presence. We naturally feltapprehensive that we should never see Katosa again. A migratoryafflatus seems to have come over the Ajawa tribes. Wars amongthemselves, for the supply of the Coast slave-trade, are said to havefirst set them in motion. The usual way in which they have advancedamong the Manganja has been by slave-trading in a friendly way.Then, professing to wish to live as subjects, they have been welcomedas guests, and the Manganja, being great agriculturists, have beenable to support considerable bodies of these visitors for a time.When the provisions became scarce, the guests began to steal from thefields; quarrels arose in consequence, and, the Ajawa havingfirearms, their hosts got the worst of it, and were expelled fromvillage after village, and out of their own country. The Manganjawere quite as bad in regard to slave-trading as the Ajawa, but hadless enterprise, and were much more fond of the home pursuits ofspinning, weaving, smelting iron, and cultivating the soil, than offoreign travel. The Ajawa had little of a mechanical turn, and notmuch love for agriculture, but were very keen traders and travellers.This party seemed to us to be in the first or friendly stage ofintercourse with Katosa; and, as we afterwards found, he was fullyalive to the danger.

Our course was shaped towards the N.W., and we traversed a largefertile tract of rich soil extensively cultivated, but dotted withmany gigantic thorny acacias which had proved too large for thelittle axes of the cultivators. After leaving Nkwinda, the firstvillage we spent a night at in the district Ngabi was that of Chembi,and it had a stockade around it. The Azitu or Mazitu were said to beravaging the country to the west of us, and no one was safe except ina stockade. We have so often, in travelling, heard of war in front,that we paid little attention to the assertion of Chembi, that thewhole country to the N.W. was in flight before these Mazitu, under achief with the rather formidable name of Mowhiriwhiri; we thereforeresolved to go on to Chinsamba's, still further in the samedirection, and hear what he said about it.

The only instrument of husbandry here is the short-handled hoe; andabout Tette the labour of tilling the soil, as represented in thewoodcut, is performed entirely by female slaves. On the West Coast adouble-handled hoe is employed. Here the small hoe is seen in thehands of both men and women. In other parts of Africa a hoe with ahandle four feet long is used, but the plough is quite unknown.

In illustration of the manner in which the native knowledge ofagriculture strikes an honest intelligent observer, it may bementioned that the first time good Bishop Mackenzie beheld how wellthe fields of the Manganja were cultivated on the hills, he remarkedto Dr. Livingstone, then his fellow-traveller--"When telling thepeople in England what were my objects in going out to Africa, Istated that, among other things, I meant to teach these peopleagriculture; but I now see that they know far more about it than Ido." This, we take it, was an honest straightforward testimony, andwe believe that every unprejudiced witness, who has an opportunity offorming an opinion of Africans who have never been debased byslavery, will rank them very much higher in the scale ofintelligence, industry, and manhood, than others who know them onlyin a state of degradation.

On coming near Chinsamba's two stockades, on the banks of theLintipe, we were told that the Mazitu had been repulsed there the daybefore, and we had evidence of the truth of the report of the attackin the sad sight of the bodies of the slain. The Zulus had taken offlarge numbers of women laden with corn; and, when driven back, hadcut off the ears of a male prisoner, as a sort of credential that hehad been with the Mazitu, and with grim humour sent him to tellChinsamba "to take good care of the corn in the stockades, for theymeant to return for it in a month or two."

Chinsamba's people were drumming with might and main on our arrival,to express their joy at their deliverance from the Mazitu. The drumis the chief instrument of music among the Manganja, and with it theyexpress both their joy and grief. They excel in beating time.Chinsamba called us into a very large hut, and presented us with ahuge basket of beer. The glare of sunlight from which we had comeenabled him, in diplomatic fashion, to have a good view of us beforeour eyes became enough accustomed to the dark inside to see him. Hehas a Jewish cast of countenance, or rather the ancient Assyrianface, as seen in the monuments brought to the British Museum by Mr.Layard. This form of face is very common in this country, and leadsto the belief that the true type of the negro is not that met on theWest Coast, from which most people have derived their ideas of theAfrican.

Chinsamba had many Abisa or Babisa in his stockade, and it waschiefly by the help of their muskets that he had repulsed the Mazitu:these Babisa are great travellers and traders.

We liked Chinsamba very well, and found that he was decidedly opposedto our risking our lives by going further to the N.W. The Mazituwere believed to occupy all the hills in that direction, so we spentthe 4th of September with him.

It is rather a minute thing to mention, and it will only beunderstood by those who have children of their own, but the cries ofthe little ones, in their infant sorrows, are the same in tone, atdifferent ages, here as all over the world. We have been perpetuallyreminded of home and family by the wailings which were once familiarto parental ears and heart, and felt thankful that to the sorrows ofchildhood our children would never have superadded the heartrendingwoes of the slave-trade.

Taking Chinsamba's advice to avoid the Mazitu in their marauding, westarted on the 5th September away to the N.E., and passed mile aftermile of native cornfields, with an occasional cotton-patch.

After a long march, we passed over a waterless plain about N.N.W. ofthe hills of Tsenga to a village on the Lake, and thence up itsshores to Chitanda. The banks of the Lake were now crowded withfugitives, who had collected there for the poor protection which thereeds afforded. For miles along the water's edge was one continuousvillage of temporary huts. The people had brought a little corn withthem; but they said, "What shall we eat when that is done? When weplant corn, the wild beasts (Zinyama, as they call the Mazitu) comeand take it. When we plant cassava, they do the same. How are we tolive?" A poor blind woman, thinking we were Mazitu, rushed off infront of us with outspread arms, lifting the feet high, in the mannerpeculiar to those who have lost their sight, and jumped into thereeds of a stream for safety.

In our way along the shores we crossed several running rivulets ofclear cold water, which, from having reeds at their confluences, hadnot been noticed in our previous exploration in the boat. One ofthese was called Mokola, and another had a strong odour ofsulphuretted hydrogen. We reached Molamba on the 8th September, andfound our old acquaintance, Nkomo, there still. One of theadvantages of travelling along the shores of the Lake was, that wecould bathe anywhere in its clear fresh water. To us, who had beenobliged so often to restrain our inclination in the Zambesi and Shirefor fear of crocodiles, this was pleasant beyond measure. The waternow was of the same temperature as it was on our former visit, or 72degrees Fahr. The immense depth of the Lake prevents the rays of thesun from raising the temperature as high as that of the Shire andZambesi; and the crocodiles, having always clear water in the Lake,and abundance of fish, rarely attack man; many of these reptilescould be seen basking on the rocks.

A day's march beyond Molamba brought us to the lakelet Chia, whichlies parallel with the Lake. It is three or four miles long, by fromone to one and a half broad, and communicates with the Lake by an armof good depth, but with some rocks in it. As we passed up betweenthe Lake and the eastern shore of this lakelet, we did not see anystreams flowing into it. It is quite remarkable for the abundance offish; and we saw upwards of fifty large canoes engaged in thefishery, which is carried on by means of hand-nets with side-framepoles about seven feet long. These nets are nearly identical withthose now in use in Normandy--the difference being that the Africannet has a piece of stick lashed across the handle-ends of the sidepoles to keep them steady, which is a great improvement. The fishmust be very abundant to be scooped out of the water in suchquantities as we saw, and by so many canoes. There is quite a tradehere in dried fish.

The country around is elevated, undulating, and very extensivelyplanted with cassava. The hoe in use has a handle of four feet inlength, and the iron part is exactly of the same form as that in thecountry of the Bechuanas. The baskets here, which are so closelywoven together as to hold beer, are the same with those employed tohold milk in Kaffirland--a thousand miles distant.

Marching on foot is peculiarly conducive to meditation--one is gladof any subject to occupy the mind, and relieve the monotony of theweary treadmill-like trudge-trudging. This Chia net brought to ourmind that the smith's bellows made here of a goatskin bag, withsticks along the open ends, are the same as those in use in theBechuana country far to the south-west. These, with the long-handledhoe, may only show that each successive horde from north to southtook inventions with it from the same original source. Where thatsource may have been is probably indicated by another pair ofbellows, which we observed below the Victoria Falls, being found inCentral India and among the Gipsies of Europe.

Men in remote times may have had more highly-developed instincts,which enabled them to avoid or use poisons; but the late ArchbishopWhately has proved, that wholly untaught savages never could inventanything, or even subsist at all. Abundant corroboration of hisarguments is met with in this country, where the natives require butlittle in the way of clothing, and have remarkably hardy stomachs.Although possessing a knowledge of all the edible roots and fruits inthe country, having hoes to dig with, and spears, bows, and arrows tokill the game,--we have seen that, notwithstanding all theseappliances and means to boot, they have perished of absolutestarvation.

The art of making fire is the same in India as in Africa. Thesmelting furnaces, for reducing iron and copper from the ores, arealso similar. Yellow haematite, which bears not the smallestresemblance either in colour or weight to the metal, is employed nearKolobeng for the production of iron. Malachite, the precious greenstone used in civilized life for vases, would never be suspected bythe uninstructed to be a rich ore of copper, and yet it isextensively smelted for rings and other ornaments in the heart ofAfrica. A copper bar of native manufacture four feet long wasoffered to us for sale at Chinsamba's. These arts are monumentsattesting the fact, that some instruction from above must at sometime or other have been supplied to mankind; and, as ArchbishopWhately says, "the most probable conclusion is, that man when firstcreated, or very shortly afterwards, was advanced, by the CreatorHimself, to a state above that of a mere savage."

The argument for an original revelation to man, though quiteindependent of the Bible history, tends to confirm that history. Itis of the same nature with this, that man could not have MADEhimself, and therefore must have had a Divine CREATOR. Mankind couldnot, in the first instance, have CIVILIZED themselves, and thereforemust have had a superhuman INSTRUCTOR.

In connection with this subject, it is remarkable that throughoutsuccessive generations no change has taken place in the form of thevarious inventions. Hammers, tongs, hoes, axes, adzes, handles tothem; needles, bows and arrows, with the mode of feathering thelatter; spears, for killing game, with spear-heads having what istermed "dish" on both sides to give them, when thrown, the rotatorymotion of rifle-balls; the arts of spinning and weaving, with that ofpounding and steeping the inner bark of a tree till it serves asclothing; millstones for grinding corn into meal; the manufacture ofthe same kind of pots or chatties as in India; the art of cooking, ofbrewing beer and straining it as was done in ancient Egypt; fish-hooks, fishing and hunting nets, fish-baskets, and weirs, the same asin the Highlands of Scotland; traps for catching animals, etc.,etc.,--have all been so very permanent from age to age, and some ofthem of identical patterns are so widely spread over the globe, as torender it probable that they were all, at least in some degree,derived from one Source. The African traditions, which seempossessed of the same unchangeability as the arts to which theyrelate, like those of all other nations refer their origin to asuperior Being. And it is much more reasonable to receive the hintsgiven in Genesis, concerning direct instruction from God to our firstparents or their children in religious or moral duty, and probably inthe knowledge of the arts of life, {6} than to give credence to thetheory that untaught savage man subsisted in a state which wouldprove fatal to all his descendants, and that in such helpless statehe made many inventions which most of his progeny retained, but neverimproved upon during some thirty centuries.

We crossed in canoes the arm of the Lake, which joins Chia to Nyassa,and spent the night on its northern bank. The whole country adjacentto the Lake, from this point up to Kota-kota Bay, is densely peopledby thousands who have fled from the forays of the Mazitu in hopes ofprotection from the Arabs who live there. In three running rivuletswe saw the Shuare palm, and an oil palm which is much inferior tothat on the West Coast. Though somewhat similar in appearance, thefruit is not much larger than hazel-nuts, and the people do not usethem, on account of the small quantity of oil which they afford.

The idea of using oil for light never seems to have entered theAfrican mind. Here a bundle of split and dried bamboo, tied togetherwith creeping plants, as thick as a man's body, and about twenty feetin length, is employed in the canoes as a torch to attract the fishat night. It would be considered a piece of the most wastefulextravagance to burn the oil they obtain from the castor-oil bean andother seeds, and also from certain fish, or in fact to do anythingwith it but anoint their heads and bodies.

We arrived at Kota-kota Bay in the afternoon of the 10th September,1863; and sat down under a magnificent wild fig-tree with leaves teninches long, by five broad, about a quarter of a mile from thevillage of Juma ben Saidi, and Yakobe ben Arame, whom we had met onthe River Kaombe, a little north of this, in our first exploration ofthe Lake. We had rested but a short time when Juma, who is evidentlythe chief person here, followed by about fifty people, came to saluteus and to invite us to take up our quarters in his village. The hutwhich, by mistake, was offered, was so small and dirty, that wepreferred sleeping in an open space a few hundred yards off.

Juma afterwards apologized for the mistake, and presented us withrice, meal, sugar-cane, and a piece of malachite. We returned hisvisit on the following day, and found him engaged in building a dhowor Arab vessel, to replace one which he said had been wrecked. Thisnew one was fifty feet long, twelve feet broad, and five feet deep.The planks were of a wood like teak, here called Timbati, and thetimbers of a closer grained wood called Msoro. The sight of thisdhow gave us a hint which, had we previously received it, would haveprevented our attempting to carry a vessel of iron past theCataracts. The trees around Katosa's village were Timbati, and theywould have yielded planks fifty feet long and thirty inches broad.With a few native carpenters a good vessel could be built on the Lakenearly as quickly as one could be carried past the Cataracts, and ata vastly less cost. Juma said that no money would induce him to partwith this dhow. He was very busy in transporting slaves across theLake by means of two boats, which we saw returning from a trip in theafternoon. As he did not know of our intention to visit him, we cameupon several gangs of stout young men slaves, each secured by theneck to one common chain, waiting for exportation, and several morein slave-sticks. These were all civilly removed before our interviewwas over, because Juma knew that we did not relish the sight.

When we met the same Arabs in 1861, they had but few attendants:according to their own account, they had now, in the village andadjacent country, 1500 souls. It is certain that tens of thousandshad flocked to them for protection, and all their power and influencemust be attributed to the possession of guns and gunpowder. Thiscrowding of refugees to any point where there is a hope for securityfor life and property is very common in this region, and theknowledge of it made our hopes beat high for the success of apeaceful Mission on the shores of the Lake. The rate, however, inwhich the people here will perish by the next famine, or be exportedby Juma and others, will, we fear, depopulate those parts which wehave just described as crowded with people. Hunger will ere longcompel them to sell each other. An intelligent man complained to usof the Arabs often seizing slaves, to whom they took a fancy, withoutthe formality of purchase; but the price is so low--from two to fouryards of calico--that one can scarcely think this seizure andexportation without payment worth their while. The boats were inconstant employment, and, curiously enough, Ben Habib, whom we met atLinyanti in 1855, had been taken across the Lake, the day before ourarrival at this Bay, on his way from Sesheke to Kilwa, and we becameacquainted with a native servant of the Arabs, called SeleleSaidallah, who could speak the Makololo language pretty fairly fromhaving once spent some months in the Barotse Valley.

From boyhood upwards we have been accustomed, from time to time, toread in books of travels about the great advances annually made byMohammedanism in Africa. The rate at which this religion spreads wassaid to be so rapid, that in after days, in our own pretty extensivetravels, we have constantly been on the look out for the advancingwave from North to South, which, it was prophesied, would soon reducethe entire continent to the faith of the false prophet. The onlyfoundation that we can discover for the assertions referred to, andfor others of more recent date, is the fact that in a remote cornerof North-Western Africa the Fulahs, and Mandingoes, and some othersin Northern Africa, as mentioned by Dr. Barth, have made conquests ofterritory; but even they care so very little for the extension oftheir faith, that after the conquest no pains whatever are taken toindoctrinate the adults of the tribe. This is in exact accordancewith the impression we have received from our intercourse withMohammedans and Christians. The followers of Christ alone areanxious to propagate their faith. A quasi philanthropist wouldcertainly never need to recommend the followers of Islam, whom wehave met, to restrain their benevolence by preaching that "Charityshould begin at home."

Though Selele and his companions were bound to their masters bydomestic ties, the only new idea they had imbibed from Mohammedanismwas, that it would be wrong to eat meat killed by other people. Theythought it would be "unlucky." Just as the inhabitants of Kolobeng,before being taught the requirements of Christianity, refrained fromhoeing their gardens on Sundays, lest they should reap an unluckycrop. So far as we could learn, no efforts had been made to convertthe natives, though these two Arabs, and about a dozen half-castes,had been in the country for many years; and judging from ourexperience with a dozen Mohammedans in our employ at high wages forsixteen months, the Africans would be the better men in proportion asthey retained their native faith. This may appear only a harshjudgment from a mind imbued with Christian prejudices; but withoutany pretention to that impartiality, which leaves it doubtful towhich side the affections lean, the truth may be fairly stated by onewho viewed all Mohammedans and Africans with the sincerest good will.

Our twelve Mohammedans from Johanna were the least open of any of ourparty to impression from kindness. A marked difference in generalconduct was apparent. The Makololo, and other natives of thecountry, whom we had with us, invariably shared with each other thefood they had cooked, but the Johanna men partook of their meals at adistance. This, at first, we attributed to their Moslem prejudices;but when they saw the cooking process of the others nearly complete,they came, sat beside them, and ate the portion offered without everremembering to return the compliment when their own turn came to begenerous. The Makololo and the others grumbled at their greediness,yet always followed the common custom of Africans of sharing theirfood with all who sit around them. What vexed us most in the Johannamen was their indifference to the welfare of each other. Once, whenthey were all coming to the ship after sleeping ashore, one of themwalked into the water with the intention of swimming off to the boat,and while yet hardly up to his knees was seized by a horrid crocodileand dragged under; the poor fellow gave a shriek, and held up hishand for aid, but none of his countrymen stirred to his assistance,and he was never seen again. On asking his brother-in-law why he didnot help him, he replied, "Well, no one told him to go into thewater. It was his own fault that he was killed." The Makololo onthe other hand rescued a woman at Senna by entering the water, andtaking her out of the crocodile's mouth.

It is not assumed that their religion had much to do in the matter.Many Mohammedans might contrast favourably with indifferentChristians; but, so far as our experience in East Africa goes, themoral tone of the follower of Mahomed is pitched at a lower key thanthat of the untutored African. The ancient zeal for propagating thetenets of the Koran has evaporated, and been replaced by the mostintense selfishness and grossest sensuality. The only known effortsmade by Mohammedans, namely, those in the North-West and North of thecontinent, are so linked with the acquisition of power and plunder,as not to deserve the name of religious propagandism; and the onlyreligion that now makes proselytes is that of Jesus Christ. To thosewho are capable of taking a comprehensive view of this subject,nothing can be adduced of more telling significance than the well-attested fact, that while the Mohammedans, Fulahs, and others towardsCentral Africa, make a few proselytes by a process which gratifiestheir own covetousness, three small sections of the Christianconverts, the Africans in the South, in the West Indies, and on theWest Coast of Africa actually contribute for the support and spreadof their religion upwards of 15,000 pounds annually. {7} Thatreligion which so far overcomes the selfishness of the human heartmust be Divine.

Leaving Kota-kota Bay, we turned away due West on the great slaveroute to Katanga's and Cazembe's country in Londa. Juma lent us hisservant, Selele, to lead us the first day's march. He said that thetraders from Kilwa and Iboe cross the Lake either at this bay, or atTsenga, or at the southern end of the Lake; and that wherever theymay cross they all go by this path to the interior. They have slaveswith them to carry their goods, and when they reach a spot where theycan easily buy others, they settle down and begin the traffic, and atonce cultivate grain. So much of the land lies waste, that noobjection is ever made to any one taking possession of as much as heneeds; they can purchase a field of cassava for their present wantsfor very little, and they continue trading in the country for two orthree years, and giving what weight their muskets possess to thechief who is most liberal to them.

The first day's march led us over a rich, well-cultivated plain.This was succeeded by highlands, undulating, stony, and covered withscraggy trees. Many banks of well rounded shingle appear. Thedisintegration of the rocks, now going on, does not round off theangles; they are split up by the heat and cold into angularfragments. On these high downs we crossed the River Kaombe. Beyondit we came among the upland vegetation--rhododendrons, proteas, themasuko, and molompi. At the foot of the hill, Kasuko-suko, we foundthe River Bua running north to join the Kaombe. We had to go a mileout of our way for a ford; the stream is deep enough in parts forhippopotami. The various streams not previously noticed, crossed inthis journey, had before this led us to the conclusion, independentlyof the testimony of the natives, that no large river ran into thenorth end of the Lake. No such affluent was needed to account forthe Shire's perennial flow.

On September 15th we reached the top of the ascent which, from itsmany ups and downs, had often made us puff and blow as if broken-winded. The water of the streams we crossed was deliciously cold,and now that we had gained the summit at Ndonda, where the boiling-point of water showed an altitude of 3440 feet above the sea, the airwas delightful. Looking back we had a magnificent view of the Lake,but the haze prevented our seeing beyond the sea horizon. The scenewas beautiful, but it was impossible to dissociate the lovelylandscape whose hills and dales had so sorely tried our legs andlungs, from the sad fact that this was part of the great slave routenow actually in use. By this road many "Ten thousands" have hereseen "the Sea," "the Sea," but with sinking hearts; for the universalidea among the captive gangs is, that they are going to be fattenedand eaten by the whites. They cannot of course be so much shocked aswe should be--their sensibilities are far from fine, their feelingsare more obtuse than ours--in fact, "the live eels are used to beingskinned," perhaps they rather like it. We who are not philosophic,blessed the Providence which at Thermopylae in ancient days rolledback the tide of Eastern conquest from the West, and so guided thecourse of events that light and liberty and gospel truth spread toour distant isle, and emancipating our race freed them from the fearof ever again having to climb fatiguing heights and descend wearisomehollows in a slave-gang, as we suppose they did when the fair Englishyouths were exposed for sale at Rome.

Looking westwards we perceived that, what from below had theappearance of mountains, was only the edge of a table-land which,though at first undulating, soon became smooth, and sloped towardsthe centre of the country. To the south a prominent mountain calledChipata, and to the south-west another named Ngalla, by which the Buais said to rise, gave character to the landscape. In the north,masses of hills prevented our seeing more than eight or ten miles.

The air which was so exhilarating to Europeans had an opposite effecton five men who had been born and reared in the malaria of the Deltaof the Zambesi. No sooner did they reach the edge of the plateau atNdonda, than they lay down prostrate, and complained of pains allover them. The temperature was not much lower than that on theshores of the Lake below, 76 degrees being the mean temperature ofthe day, 52 degrees the lowest, and 82 degrees the highest during thetwenty-four hours; at the Lake it was about l0 degrees higher. Ofthe symptoms they complained of--pains everywhere--nothing could bemade. And yet it was evident that they had good reason for sayingthat they were ill. They scarified almost every part of their bodiesas a remedial measure; medicines, administered on the suppositionthat their malady was the effect of a sudden chill, had no effect,and in two days one of them actually died in consequence of, as faras we could judge, a change from a malarious to a purer and morerarefied atmosphere.

As we were on the slave route, we found the people more churlish thanusual. On being expostulated with about it, they replied, "We havebeen made wary by those who come to buy slaves." The calamity ofdeath having befallen our party, seemed, however, to awaken theirsympathies. They pointed out their usual burying-place, lent ushoes, and helped to make the grave. When we offered to pay allexpenses, they showed that they had not done these friendly officeswithout fully appreciating their value; for they enumerated the useof the hut, the mat on which the deceased had lain, the hoes, thelabour, and the medicine which they had scattered over the place tomake him rest in peace.

The primitive African faith seems to be that there is one AlmightyMaker of heaven and earth; that he has given the various plants ofearth to man to be employed as mediators between him and the spiritworld, where all who have ever been born and died continue to live;that sin consists in offences against their fellow-men, either hereor among the departed, and that death is often a punishment of guilt,such as witchcraft. Their idea of moral evil differs in no respectfrom ours, but they consider themselves amenable only to inferiorbeings, not to the Supreme. Evil-speaking--lying--hatred--disobedience to parents--neglect of them--are said by the intelligentto have been all known to be sin, as well as theft, murder, oradultery, before they knew aught of Europeans or their teaching. Theonly new addition to their moral code is, that it is wrong to havemore wives than one. This, until the arrival of Europeans, neverentered into their minds even as a doubt.

Everything not to be accounted for by common causes, whether of goodor evil, is ascribed to the Deity. Men are inseparably connectedwith the spirits of the departed, and when one dies he is believed tohave joined the hosts of his ancestors. All the Africans we have metwith are as firmly persuaded of their future existence as of theirpresent life. And we have found none in whom the belief in theSupreme Being was not rooted. He is so invariably referred to as theAuthor of everything supernatural, that, unless one is ignorant oftheir language, he cannot fail to notice this prominent feature oftheir faith. When they pass into the unseen world, they do not seemto be possessed with the fear of punishment. The utensils placedupon the grave are all broken as if to indicate that they will neverbe used by the departed again. The body is put into the grave in asitting posture, and the hands are folded in front. In some parts ofthe country there are tales which we could translate into faintglimmerings of a resurrection; but whether these fables, handed downfrom age to age, convey that meaning to the natives themselves wecannot tell. The true tradition of faith is asserted to be "though aman die he will live again;" the false that when he dies he is deadfor ever.

CHAPTER XIV.

Important geographical discoveries in the Wabisa countries--Crueltyof the slave-trade--The Mazitu--Serious illness of Dr. Livingstone--Return to the ship.

In our course westwards, we at first passed over a gently undulatingcountry, with a reddish clayey soil, which, from the heavy crops,appeared to be very fertile. Many rivulets were crossed, somerunning southwards into the Bua, and others northwards into theLoangwa, a river which we formerly saw flowing into the Lake.Further on, the water was chiefly found in pools and wells. Thenstill further, in the same direction, some watercourses were said toflow into that same "Loangwa of the Lake," and others into theLoangwa, which flows to the south-west, and enters the Zambesi atZumbo, and is here called the "Loangwa of the Maravi." The treeswere in general scraggy, and covered, exactly as they are in the dampclimate of the Coast, with lichens, resembling orchilla-weed. Themaize, which loves rather a damp soil, had been planted on ridges toallow the superfluous moisture to run off. Everything indicated avery humid climate, and the people warned us that, as the rains werenear, we were likely to be prevented from returning by the countrybecoming flooded and impassable.

Villages, as usual encircled by euphorbia hedges, were numerous, anda great deal of grain had been cultivated around them. Domesticfowls, in plenty, and pigeons with dovecots like those in Egypt wereseen. The people call themselves Matumboka, but the only differencebetween them and the rest of the Manganja is in the mode of tattooingthe face. Their language is the same. Their distinctive markconsists of four tattooed lines diverging from the point between theeyebrows, which, in frowning, the muscles form into a furrow. Theother lines of tattooing, as in all Manganja, run in long seams,which crossing each other at certain angles form a great number oftriangular spaces on the breast, back, arms, and thighs. The cuticleis divided by a knife, and the edges of the incision are drawn aparttill the true skin appears. By a repetition of this process, linesof raised cicatrices are formed, which are thought to give beauty, nomatter how much pain the fashion gives.

It would not be worth while to advert for a moment to the routine oftravelling, or the little difficulties that beset every one whoattempts to penetrate into a new country, were it not to show thegreat source of the power here possessed by slave-traders. We neededhelp in carrying our goods, while our men were ill, though still ableto march. When we had settled with others for hire, we were oftentold, that the dealers in men had taken possession of some, and hadtaken them away altogether. Other things led us to believe that theslave-traders carry matters with a high hand; and no wonder, for thepossession of gunpowder gives them almost absolute power. The modeby which tribes armed with bows and arrows carry on warfare, ordefend themselves, is by ambuscade. They never come out in openfight, but wait for the enemy ensconced behind trees, or in the longgrass of the country, and shoot at him unawares. Consequently, ifmen come against them with firearms, when, as is usually the case,the long grass is all burned off, the tribe attacked are as helplessas a wooden ship, possessing only signal guns, would be before aniron-clad steamer. The time of year selected for this kind ofwarfare is nearly always that in which the grass is actually burntoff, or is so dry as readily to take fire. The dry grass in Africalooks more like ripe English wheat late in the autumn, than anythingelse we can compare it to. Let us imagine an English villagestanding in a field of this sort, bounded only by the horizon, andenemies setting fire to a line of a mile or two, by running alongwith bunches of burning straw in their hands, touching here and therethe inflammable material,--the wind blowing towards the doomedvillage--the inhabitants with only one or two old muskets, but ten toone no powder,--the long line of flames, leaping thirty feet into theair with dense masses of black smoke--and pieces of charred grassfalling down in showers. Would not the stoutest English villager,armed only with the bow and arrow against the enemy's musket, quailat the idea of breaking through that wall of fire? When at adistance, we once saw a scene like this, and had the charred grass,literally as thick as flakes of black snow, falling around us, therewas no difficulty in understanding the secret of the slave-trader'spower.

On the 21st of September, we arrived at the village of the chiefMuasi, or Muazi; it is surrounded by a stockade, and embowered invery tall euphorbia-trees; their height, thirty or forty feet, showsthat it has been inhabited for at least one generation. A visitationof disease or death causes the headmen to change the site of theirvillages, and plant new hedges; but, though Muazi has suffered fromthe attacks of the Mazitu, he has evidently clung to his birthplace.The village is situated about two miles south-west of a high hillcalled Kasungu, which gives the name to a district extending to theLoangwa of the Maravi. Several other detached granite hills havebeen shot up on the plain, and many stockaded villages, all owingallegiance to Muazi, are scattered over it.

On our arrival, the chief was sitting in the smooth shady place,called Boalo, where all public business is transacted, with about twohundred men and boys around him. We paid our guides with dueostentation. Masiko, the tallest of our party, measured off thefathom of cloth agreed upon, and made it appear as long as possible,by facing round to the crowd, and cutting a few inches beyond whathis outstretched arms could reach, to show that there was nodeception. This was by way of advertisement. The people aremightily gratified at having a tall fellow to measure the cloth forthem. It pleases them even better than cutting it by a tape-line--though very few men of six feet high can measure off their own lengthwith their outstretched arms. Here, where Arab traders have been,the cubit called mokono, or elbow, begins to take the place of thefathom in use further south. The measure is taken from the point ofthe bent elbow to the end of the middle finger.

We found, on visiting Muazi on the following day, that he was asfrank and straightforward as could reasonably be expected. He didnot wish us to go to the N.N.W., because he carries on a considerabletrade in ivory there. We were anxious to get off the slave route, topeople not visited before by traders; but Muazi naturally feared,that if we went to what is said to be a well-watered country,abounding in elephants, we might relieve him of the ivory which henow obtains at a cheap rate, and sells to the slave-traders as theypass Kasungu to the east; but at last he consented, warning us that"great difficulty would be experienced in obtaining food--a districthad been depopulated by slave wars--and a night or two must be spentin it; but he would give us good guides, who would go three days withus, before turning, and then further progress must depend onourselves." Some of our men having been ill ever since we mountedthis highland plain, we remained two days with Muazi.

A herd of fine cattle showed that no tsetse existed in the district.They had the Indian hump, and were very fat, and very tame. The boysrode on both cows and bulls without fear, and the animals were so fatand lazy, that the old ones only made a feeble attempt to kick theiryoung tormentors. Muazi never milks the cows; he complained that,but for the Mazitu having formerly captured some, he should now havehad very many. They wander over the country at large, and certainlythrive.

After leaving Muazi's, we passed over a flat country sparsely coveredwith the scraggy upland trees, but brightened with many fine flowers.The grass was short, reaching no higher than the knee, and growing intufts with bare spaces between, though the trees were draped withmany various lichens, and showed a moist climate. A high and verysharp wind blew over the flats; its piercing keenness was not causedby low temperature, for the thermometer stood at 80 degrees.

We were now on the sources of the Loangwa of the Maravi, which entersthe Zambesi at Zumbo, and were struck by the great resemblance whichthe boggy and sedgy streams here presented to the sources of theLeeba, an affluent of the Zambesi formerly observed in Londa, and ofthe Kasai, which some believe to be the principal branch of the Congoor Zaire.

We had taken pains to ascertain from the travelled Babisa and Arabsas much as possible about the country in front, which, from thelessening time we had at our disposal, we feared we could scarcelyreach, and had heard a good deal of a small lake called Bemba. As weproceeded west, we passed over the sources not only of the Loangwa,but of another stream, called Moitawa or Moitala, which wasrepresented to be the main feeder of Lake Bemba. This would be oflittle importance, but for the fact that the considerable riverLuapula, or Loapula is said to flow out of Bemba to the westward, andthen to spread out into another and much larger lake, named Moero, orMoelo. Flowing still further in the same direction, the Loapulaforms Lake Mofue, or Mofu, and after this it is said to pass the townof Cazembe, bend to the north, and enter Lake Tanganyika. Whitherthe water went after it entered the last lake, no one would venturean assertion. But that the course indicated is the true watershed ofthat part of the country, we believe from the unvarying opinion ofnative travellers. There could be no doubt that our informants hadbeen in the country beyond Cazembe's, for they knew and describedchiefs whom we afterwards met about thirty-five or forty miles westof his town. The Lualaba is said to flow into the Loapula--and when,for the sake of testing the accuracy of the travelled, it wasasserted that all the water of the region round the town of Cazembeflowed into the Luambadzi, or Luambezi (Zambesi), they remarked witha smile, "He says, that the Loapula flows into the Zambesi--did youever hear such nonsense?" or words to that effect. We were forced toadmit, that according to native accounts, our previous impression ofthe Zambesi's draining the country about Cazembe's had been amistake. Their geographical opinions are now only stated, withoutany further comment than that the itinerary given by the Arabs andothers shows that the Loapula is twice crossed on the way toCazembe's; and we may add that we have never found any difficultyfrom the alleged incapacity of the negro to tell which way a riverflows.

The boiling-point of water showed a descent, from the edge of theplateau to our furthest point west, of 170 feet; but this can only beconsidered as an approximation, and no dependence could have beenplaced on it, had we not had the courses of the streams to confirmthis rather rough mode of ascertaining altitudes. The slope, asshown by the watershed, was to the "Loangwa of the Maravi," andtowards the Moitala, or south-west, west, and north-west. After weleave the feeders of Lake Nyassa, the water drains towards the centreof the continent. The course of the Kasai, a river seen during Dr.Livingstone's journey to the West Coast, and its feeders was to thenorth-east, or somewhat in the same direction. Whether the waterthus drained off finds its way out by the Congo, or by the Nile, hasnot yet been ascertained. Some parts of the continent have been saidto resemble an inverted dinner-plate. This portion seems more of theshape, if shape it has, of a wide-awake hat, with the crown a littledepressed. The altitude of the brim in some parts is considerable;in others, as at Tette and the bottom of Murchison's Cataracts, it isso small that it could be ascertained only by eliminating the dailyvariations of the barometer, by simultaneous observations on theCoast, and at points some two or three hundred miles inland. So longas African rivers remain in what we may call the brim, they presentno obstructions; but no sooner do they emerge from the higher landsthan their utility is impaired by cataracts. The low lying belt isvery irregular. At times sloping up in the manner of the rim of aninverted dinner-plate--while in other cases, a high ridge rises nearthe sea, to be succeeded by a lower district inland before we reachthe central plateau. The breadth of the low lands is sometimes asmuch as three hundred miles, and that breadth determines the limitsof navigation from the seaward.

We made three long marches beyond Muazi's in a north-westerlydirection; the people were civil enough, but refused to sell us anyfood. We were travelling too fast, they said; in fact, they werestartled, and before they recovered their surprise, we were obligedto depart. We suspected that Muazi had sent them orders to refuse usfood, that we might thus be prevented from going into the depopulateddistrict; but this may have been mere suspicion, the result of ourown uncharitable feelings.

We spent one night at Machambwe's village, and another at Chimbuzi's.It is seldom that we can find the headman on first entering avillage. He gets out of the way till he has heard all about thestrangers, or he is actually out in the fields looking after hisfarms. We once thought that when the headman came in from a visit ofinspection, with his spear, bow and arrows, they had been all takenup for the occasion, and that he had all the while been hidden insome hut slily watching till he heard that the strangers might betrusted; but on listening to the details given by these men of theappearances of the crops at different parts, and the astonishingminuteness of the speakers' topography, we were persuaded that insome cases we were wrong, and felt rather humiliated. Every knoll,hill, mountain, and every peak on a range has a name; and so hasevery watercourse, dell, and plain. In fact, every feature andportion of the country is so minutely distinguished by appropriatenames, that it would take a lifetime to decipher their meaning. Itis not the want, but the superabundance of names that misleadstravellers, and the terms used are so multifarious that good scholarswill at times scarcely know more than the subject of conversation.Though it is a little apart from the topic of the attention which theheadmen pay to agriculture, yet it may be here mentioned, whilespeaking of the fulness of the language, that we have heard about ascore of words to indicate different varieties of gait--one walksleaning forward, or backward, swaying from side to side, loungingly,or smartly, swaggeringly, swinging the arms, or only one arm, headdown or up, or otherwise; each of these modes of walking wasexpressed by a particular verb; and more words were used to designatethe different varieties of fools than we ever tried to count.

Mr. Moffat has translated the whole Bible into the language of theBechuana, and has diligently studied this tongue for the last forty-four-years; and, though knowing far more of the language than any ofthe natives who have been reared on the Mission-station of Kuruman,he does not pretend to have mastered it fully even yet. Howevercopious it may be in terms of which we do not feel the necessity, itis poor in others, as in abstract terms, and words used to describemental operations.

Our third day's march ended in the afternoon of the 27th September,1863, at the village of Chinanga on the banks of a branch of theLoangwa. A large, rounded mass of granite, a thousand feet high,called Nombe rume, stand on the plain a few miles off. It is quiteremarkable, because it has so little vegetation on it. Several othergranitic hills stand near it, ornamented with trees, like mostheights of this country, and a heap of blue mountains appears away inthe north.

The effect of the piercing winds upon the men had never been got ridof. Several had been unable to carry a load ever since we ascendedto the highlands; we had lost one, and another poor lad was so ill asto cause us great anxiety. By waiting in this village, which was soold that it was full of vermin, all became worse. Our European foodwas entirely expended, and native meal, though finely ground, has somany sharp angular particles in it, that it brought back dysentery,from which we had suffered so much in May. We could scarcely obtainfood for the men. The headman of this village of Chinanga was off ina foray against some people further north to supply slaves to thetraders expected along the slave route we had just left; and wassaid, after having expelled the inhabitants, to be living in theirstockade, and devouring their corn. The conquered tribe hadpurchased what was called a peace by presenting the conqueror withthree women.

This state of matters afforded us but a poor prospect of finding moreprovisions in that direction than we could with great difficulty andat enormous prices obtain here. But neither want of food, dysentery,nor slave wars would have prevented our working our way round theLake in some other direction, had we had time; but we had receivedorders from the Foreign Office to take the "Pioneer" down to the seain the previous April. The salaries of all the men in her werepositively "in any case to cease by the 31st of December."

We were said to be only ten days' distant from Lake Bemba. We mightspeculate on a late rise of the river. A month or six weeks wouldsecure a geographical feat, but the rains were near. We had beenwarned by different people that the rains were close at hand, andthat we should then be bogged and unable to travel. The flood in theriver might be an early one, or so small in volume as to give but onechance of the "Pioneer" descending to the ocean. The Makololo toowere becoming dispirited by sickness and want of food, and werenaturally anxious to be back to their fields in time for sowing. Butin addition to all this and more, it was felt that it would not bedealing honestly with the Government, were we, for the sake of alittle eclat, to risk the detention of the "Pioneer" up the riverduring another year; so we decided to return; and though we hadafterwards the mortification to find that we were detained two fullmonths at the ship waiting for the flood which we expectedimmediately after our arrival there, the chagrin was lessened by aconsciousness of having acted in a fair, honest, above-board mannerthroughout.

On the night of the 29th of September a thief came to the sleeping-place of our men and stole a leg of a goat. On complaining to thedeputy headman, he said that the thief had fled, but would be caught.He suggested a fine, and offered a fowl and her eggs; but wishingthat the thief alone should be punished, it was advised that HEshould be found and fined. The Makololo thought it best to take thefowl as a means of making the punishment certain. After settlingthis matter on the last day of September, we commenced our returnjourney. We had just the same time to go back to the ship, that wehad spent in coming to this point, and there is not much to interestone in marching over the same ground a second time.

While on our journey north-west, a cheery old woman, who had oncebeen beautiful, but whose white hair now contrasted strongly with herdark complexion, was working briskly in her garden as we passed. Sheseemed to enjoy a hale, hearty old age. She saluted us with whatelsewhere would be called a good address; and, evidently consciousthat she deserved the epithet, "dark but comely," answered each of uswith a frank "Yes, my child." Another motherly-looking woman,sitting by a well, began the conversation by "You are going to visitMuazi, and you have come from afar, have you not?" But in generalwomen never speak to strangers unless spoken to, so anything said bythem attracts attention. Muazi once presented us with a basket ofcorn. On hinting that we had no wife to grind our corn, his buxomspouse struck in with roguish glee, and said, "I will grind it foryou; and leave Muazi, to accompany and cook for you in the land ofthe setting sun." As a rule the women are modest and retiring intheir demeanour, and, without being oppressed with toil, show a greatdeal of industry. The crops need about eight months' attention.Then when the harvest is home, much labour is required to convert itinto food as porridge, or beer. The corn is pounded in a largewooden mortar, like the ancient Egyptian one, with a pestle six feetlong and about four inches thick. The pounding is performed by twoor even three women at one mortar. Each, before delivering a blowwith her pestle, gives an upward jerk of the body, so as to putstrength into the stroke, and they keep exact time, so that twopestles are never in the mortar at the same moment. The measuredthud, thud, thud, and the women standing at their vigorous work, areassociations inseparable from a prosperous African village. By theoperation of pounding, with the aid of a little water, the hardoutside scale or husk of the grain is removed, and the corn is madefit for the millstone. The meal irritates the stomach unless clearedfrom the husk; without considerable energy in the operator, the husksticks fast to the corn. Solomon thought that still more vigour thanis required to separate the hard husk or bran from wheat would failto separate "a fool from his folly." "Though thou shouldst bray afool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, YET will not hisfoolishness depart from him." The rainbow, in some parts, is calledthe "pestle of the Barimo," or gods. Boys and girls, by constantpractice with the pestle, are able to plant stakes in the ground by asomewhat similar action, in erecting a hut, so deftly that they nevermiss the first hole made.

Let any one try by repeatedly jobbing a pole with all his force tomake a deep hole in the ground, and he will understand how difficultit is always to strike it into the same spot.

As we were sleeping one night outside a hut, but near enough to hearwhat was going on within, an anxious mother began to grind her cornabout two o'clock in the morning. "Ma," inquired a little girl, "whygrind in the dark?" Mamma advised sleep, and administered materialfor a sweet dream to her darling, by saying, "I grind meal to buy acloth from the strangers, which will make you look a little lady."An observer of these primitive races is struck continually with suchlittle trivial touches of genuine human nature.

The mill consists of a block of granite, syenite, or even micaschist, fifteen or eighteen inches square and five or six thick, witha piece of quartz or other hard rock about the size of a half brick,one side of which has a convex surface, and fits into a concavehollow in the larger and stationary stone. The workwoman kneeling,grasps this upper millstone with both hands, and works it backwardsand forwards in the hollow of the lower millstone, in the same waythat a baker works his dough, when pressing it and pushing from him.The weight of the person is brought to bear on the movable stone, andwhile it is pressed and pushed forwards and backwards, one handsupplies every now and then a little grain to be thus at firstbruised and then ground on the lower stone, which is placed on theslope so that the meal when ground falls on to a skin or mat spreadfor the purpose. This is perhaps the most primitive form of mill,and anterior to that in oriental countries, where two women grind atone mill, and may have been that used by Sarah of old when sheentertained the Angels.

On 2nd October we applied to Muazi for guides to take us straightdown to Chinsamba's at Mosapo, and thus cut off an angle, which weshould otherwise make, by going back to Kota-kota Bay. He repliedthat his people knew the short way to Chinsamba's that we desired togo, but that they all were afraid to venture there, on account of theZulus, or Mazitu. We therefore started back on our old route, and,after three hours' march, found some Babisa in a village who promisedto lead us to Chinsamba.

We meet with these keen traders everywhere. They are easily known bya line of horizontal cicatrices, each half an inch long, down themiddle of the forehead and chin. They often wear the hair collectedin a mass on the upper and back part of the head, while it is allshaven off the forehead and temples. The Babisa and Waiau or Ajawaheads have more of the round bullet-shape than those of the Manganja,indicating a marked difference in character; the former people beinggreat traders and travellers, the latter being attached to home andagriculture. The Manganja usually intrust their ivory to the Babisato be sold at the Coast, and complain that the returns made nevercome up to the high prices which they hear so much about before it issent. In fact, by the time the Babisa return, the expenses of thejourney, in which they often spend a month or two at a place wherefood abounds, usually eat up all the profits.

Our new companions were trading in tobacco, and had collectedquantities of the round balls, about the size of nine pounder shot,into which it is formed. One of them owned a woman, whose child hadbeen sold that morning for tobacco. The mother followed him, weepingsilently, for hours along the way we went; she seemed to be wellknown, for at several hamlets, the women spoke to her with evidentsympathy; we could do nothing to alleviate her sorrow--the childwould be kept until some slave-trader passed, and then sold forcalico. The different cases of slave-trading observed by us arementioned, in order to give a fair idea of its details.

We spent the first night, after leaving the slave route, at thevillage of Nkoma, among a section of Manganja, called Machewa, orMacheba, whose district extends to the Bua.

The next village at which we slept was also that of a Manganja smith.It was a beautiful spot, shaded with tall euphorbia-trees. Thepeople at first fled, but after a short time returned, and ordered usoff to a stockade of Babisa, about a mile distant. We preferred toremain in the smooth shady spot outside the hamlet, to being pent upin a treeless stockade. Twenty or thirty men came dropping in, allfully armed with bows and arrows, some of them were at least six feetfour in height, yet these giants were not ashamed to say, "We thoughtthat you were Mazitu, and, being afraid, ran away." Their orders tous were evidently inspired by terror, and so must the refusal of theheadman to receive a cloth, or lend us a hut have been; but as wenever had the opportunity of realizing what feelings a successfulinvasion would produce, we did not know whether to blame them or not.The headman, a tall old smith, with an enormous, well-made knife ofhis own workmanship, came quietly round, and, inspecting the shelter,which, from there being abundance of long grass and bushes near, ourmen put up for us in half an hour, gradually changed his tactics,and, in the evening, presented us with a huge pot of porridge and adeliciously well-cooked fowl, and made an apology for having been sorude to strangers, and a lamentation that he had been so foolish asto refuse the fine cloth we had offered. Another cloth was of coursepresented, and we had the pleasure of parting good friends next day.

Our guide, who belonged to the stockade near to which we had slept,declined to risk himself further than his home. While waiting tohire another, Masiko attempted to purchase a goat, and had nearlyconcluded the bargain, when the wife of the would-be seller cameforward, and said to her husband, "You appear as if you wereunmarried; selling a goat without consulting your wife; what aninsult to a woman! What sort of man are you?" Masiko urged the man,saying, "Let us conclude the bargain, and never mind her;" but hebeing better instructed, replied, "No, I have raised a host againstmyself already," and refused.

We now pushed on to the east, so as to get down to the shores of theLake, and into the parts where we were known. The country wasbeautiful, well wooded, and undulating, but the villages were alldeserted; and the flight of the people seemed to have been quiterecent, for the grain was standing in the corn-safes untouched. Thetobacco, though ripe, remained uncut in the gardens, and the wholecountry was painfully quiet: the oppressive stillness quite unbrokenby the singing of birds, or the shrill calls of women watching theircorn.

On passing a beautiful village, called Bangwe, surrounded by shadytrees, and placed in a valley among mountains, we were admiring thebeauty of the situation, when some of the much dreaded Mazitu, withtheir shields, ran out of the hamlet, from which we were a miledistant. They began to scream to their companions to give us chase.Without quickening our pace we walked on, and soon were in a wood,through which the footpath we were following led. The firstintimation we had of the approaching Mazitu was given by the Johannaman, Zachariah, who always lagged behind, running up, screaming as iffor his life. The bundles were all put in one place to be defended;and Masiko and Dr. Livingstone walked a few paces back to meet thecoming foe. Masiko knelt down anxious to fire, but was ordered notto do so. For a second or two dusky forms appeared among the trees,and the Mazitu were asked, in their own tongue, "What do you want?"Masiko adding, "What do you say?" No answer was given, but the darkshade in the forest vanished. They had evidently taken us fornatives, and the sight of a white man was sufficient to put them toflight. Had we been nearer the Coast, where the people areaccustomed to the slave-trade, we should have found this affair amore difficult one to deal with; but, as a rule, the people of theinterior are much more mild in character than those on the confinesof civilization.

The above very small adventure was all the danger we were aware of inthis journey; but a report was spread from the Portuguese villages onthe Zambesi, similar to several rumours that had been raised before,that Dr. Livingstone had been murdered by the Makololo; and veryunfortunately the report reached England before it could becontradicted.

One benefit arose from the Mazitu adventure. Zachariah, and otherswho had too often to be reproved for lagging behind, now took theirplaces in the front rank; and we had no difficulty in making verylong marches for several days, for all believed that the Mazitu wouldfollow our footsteps, and attack us while we slept.

A party of Babisa tobacco-traders came from the N.W. to Molamba,while we were there; and one of them asserted several times that theLoapula, after emerging from Moelo, received the Lulua, and thenflowed into Lake Mofu, and thence into Tanganyika; and from the last-named Lake into the sea. This is the native idea of the geography ofthe interior; and, to test the general knowledge of our informant, weasked him about our acquaintances in Londa; as Moene, Katema, Shindeor Shinte, who live south-west of the rivers mentioned, and foundthat our friends there were perfectly well-known to him and to othersof these travelled natives. In the evening two of the Babisa camein, and reported that the Mazitu had followed us to the villagecalled Chigaragara, at which we slept at the bottom of the descent.The whole party of traders set off at once, though the sun had set.We ourselves had given rise to the report, for the women ofChigaragara, supposing us in the distance to be Mazitu, fled, withall their household utensils on their heads, and had no opportunityafterwards of finding out their mistake. We spent the night where wewere, and next morning, declining Nkomo's entreaty to go and killelephants, took our course along the shores of the Lake southwards.

We have only been at the Lake at one season of the year: then thewind blows strongly from the east, and indeed this is its prevailingdirection hence to the Orange River; a north or a south wind is rare,and seldom lasts more than three days. As the breeze now blew over alarge body of water, towards us, it was delightful; but when facingit on the table-land it was so strong as materially to impede ourprogress, and added considerably to the labour of travelling. Hereit brought large quantities of the plant (Vallisneriae), from whichthe natives extract salt by burning, and which, if chewed, at onceshows its saline properties by the taste. Clouds of the kungo, oredible midges, floated on the Lake, and many rested on the bushes onland.

The reeds along the shores of the Lake were still crowded withfugitives, and a great loss of life must since have taken place; for,after the corn they had brought with them was expended, famine wouldensue. Even now we passed many women and children digging up theroots, about the size of peas, of an aromatic grass; and their wastedforms showed that this poor hard fare was to allay, if possible, thepangs of hunger. The babies at the breast crowed to us as we passed,their mothers kneeling and grubbing for the roots; the poor littlethings still drawing nourishment from the natural fountain wereunconscious of that sinking of heart which their parents must havefelt in knowing that the supply for the little ones must soon fail.No one would sell a bit of food to us: fishermen, even, would notpart with the produce of their nets, except in exchange for someother kind of food. Numbers of newly-made graves showed that manyhad already perished, and hundreds were so emaciated that they hadthe appearance of human skeletons swathed in brown and wrinkledleather. In passing mile after mile, marked with these sad proofsthat "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn," oneexperiences an overpowering sense of helplessness to alleviate humanwoe, and breathes a silent prayer to the Almighty to hasten the goodtime coming when "man and man the world o'er, shall brothers be forall that." One small redeeming consideration in all this miserycould not but be felt; these ills were inflicted by heathen Mazitu,and not by, or for, those who say to Him who is higher than thehighest, "We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge."

We crossed the Mokole, rested at Chitanda, and then left the Lake,and struck away N.W. to Chinsamba's. Our companions, who were somuch oppressed by the rarefied air of the plateau, still showed signsof exhaustion, though now only 1300 feet above the sea, and did notrecover flesh and spirits till we again entered the Lower ShireValley, which is of so small an altitude, that, without simultaneousobservations with the barometer there and on the sea-coast, thedifference would not be appreciable.

On a large plain on which we spent one night, we had the company ofeighty tobacco traders on their way from Kasungu to Chinsamba's. TheMazitu had attacked and killed two of them, near the spot where theZulus fled from us without answering our questions. The traders werenow so frightened that, instead of making a straight course with us,they set off by night to follow the shores of the Lake to Tsenga, andthen turn west. It is the sight of shields, or guns that inspiresterror. The bowmen feel perfectly helpless when the enemy comes witheven the small protection the skin shield affords, or attacks them inthe open field with guns. They may shoot a few arrows, but they aresuch poor shots that ten to one if they hit. The only thing thatmakes the arrow formidable is the poison; for if the poisoned barbgoes in nothing can save the wounded. A bow is in use in the lowerend of Lake Nyassa, but is more common in the Maravi country, fromsix to eight inches broad, which is intended to be used as a shieldas well as a bow; but we never saw one with the mark on it of anenemy's arrow. It certainly is no match for the Zulu shield, whichis between four and five feet long, of an oval shape, and about twofeet broad. So great is the terror this shield inspires that wesometimes doubted whether the Mazitu here were Zulus at all, andsuspected that the people of the country took advantage of that fear,and, assuming shields, pretended to belong to that nation.

On the 11th October we arrived at the stockade of Chinsamba inMosapo, and had reason to be very well satisfied with his kindness.A paraffin candle was in his eyes the height of luxury, and theability to make a light instantaneously by a lucifer match, a marvelthat struck him with wonder. He brought all his relatives indifferent groups to see the strange sights,--instantaneous fire-making, and a light, without the annoyance of having fire and smokein the middle of the floor. When they wish to look for anything inthe dark, a wisp of dried grass is lighted.

Chinsamba gave us a great deal of his company during our visits. Aswe have often remarked in other cases, a chief has a great deal toattend to in guiding the affairs of his people. He is consulted onall occasions, and gives his advice in a stream of words, which showa very intimate acquaintance with the topography of his district; heknows every rood cultivated, every weir put in the river, everyhunting-net, loom, gorge, and every child of his tribe. Any additionmade to the number of these latter is notified to him; and he sendsthanks and compliments to the parents.

The presents which, following the custom of the country, we gave toevery headman, where we either spent a night or a longer period,varied from four to eight yards of calico. We had some Manchestercloths made in imitation of the native manufactured robes of the WestCoast, each worth five or six shillings. To the more important ofthe chiefs, for calico we substituted one of these strong gaudydresses, iron spoons, a knife, needles, a tin dish, or pannikin, andfound these presents to be valued more than three times their valuein cloth would have been. Eight or ten shillings' worth gaveabundant satisfaction to the greediest; but this is to be understoodas the prime cost of the articles, and a trader would sometimes haveestimated similar generosity as equal to from 30 to 50 pounds. Insome cases the presents we gave exceeded the value of what wasreceived in return; in others the excess of generosity was on thenative side.

We never asked for leave to pass through the country; we simply toldwhere we were going, and asked for guides; if they were refused, orif they demanded payment beforehand, we requested to be put into thebeginning of the path, and said that we were sorry we could not agreeabout the guides, and usually they and we started together. Greatercare would be required on entering the Mazitu or Zulu country, forthere the Government extends over very large districts, while amongthe Manganja each little district is independent of every other. Thepeople here have not adopted the exacting system of the Banyai, or ofthe people whose country was traversed by Speke and Grant.

In our way back from Chinsamba's to Chembi's and from his village toNkwinda's, and thence to Katosa's, we only saw the people working intheir gardens, near to the stockades. These strongholds werestrengthened with branches of acacias, covered with strong hookedthorns; and were all crowded with people. The air was now clearerthan when we went north, and we could see the hills of Kirk's Rangefive or six miles to the west of our path. The sun struck very hot,and the men felt it most in their feet. Every one who could get abit of goatskin made it into a pair of sandals.

While sitting at Nkwinda's, a man behind the court hedge-wall said,with great apparent glee, that an Arab slaving party on the otherside of the confluence of the Shire and Lake were "giving readily twofathoms of calico for a boy, and two and a half for a girl; never sawtrade so brisk, no haggling at all." This party was purchasing forthe supply of the ocean slave-trade. One of the evils of thistraffic is that it profits by every calamity that happens in acountry. The slave-trader naturally reaps advantage from everydisorder, and though in the present case some lives may have beensaved that otherwise would have perished, as a rule he intensifieshatreds, and aggravates wars between the tribes, because the morethey fight and vanquish each other the richer his harvest becomes.Where slaving and cattle are unknown the people live in peace. As wesat leaning against that hedge, and listened to the harangue of theslave-trader's agent, it glanced across our mind that this was aterrible world; the best in it unable, from conscious imperfections,to say to the worst "Stand by! for I am holier than thou." Theslave-trader, imbued no doubt with certain kindly feelings, yetpursuing a calling which makes him a fair specimen of a human fiend,stands grouped with those by whom the slave-traders are employed, andwith all the workers of sin and misery in more highly-favoured lands,an awful picture to the All-seing Eye.

We arrived at Katosa's village on the 15th October, and found aboutthirty young men and boys in slave-sticks. They had been bought byother agents of the Arab slavers, still on the east side of theShire. They were resting in the village, and their owners soonremoved them. The weight of the goree seemed very annoying when theytried to sleep. This taming instrument is kept on, until the partyhas crossed several rivers and all hope of escape has vanished fromthe captive's mind.

On explaining to Katosa the injury he was doing in selling his peopleas slaves, he assured us that those whom we had seen belonged to theArabs, and added that he had far too few people already. He said hehad been living in peace at the lakelet Pamalombe; that the Ajawa, orMachinga, under Kainka and Karamba, and a body of Babisa, underMaonga, had induced him to ferry them over the Shire; that they hadlived for a considerable time at his expense, and at last stole hissheep, which induced him to make his escape to the place where he nowdwelt, and in this flight he had lost many of his people. Hisaccount of the usual conduct of the Ajawa quite agrees with whatthese people have narrated themselves, and gives but a low idea oftheir moral tone. They have repeatedly broken all the laws ofhospitality by living for months on the bounty of the Manganja, andthen, by a sudden uprising, overcoming their hosts, and killing orchasing them out of their inheritances. The secret of their successis the possession of firearms. There were several of these Ajawahere again, and on our arrival they proposed to Katosa that theyshould leave; but he replied that they need not be afraid of us.They had red beads strung so thickly on their hair that at a littledistance they appeared to have on red caps. It is curious that thetaste for red hair should be so general among the Africans here andfurther north; in the south black mica, called Sebilo, and even sootare used to deepen the colour of the hair; here many smear the headwith red-ochre, others plait the inner bark of a tree stained redinto it; and a red powder called Mukuru is employed, which some sayis obtained from the ground, and others from the roots of a tree.

It having been doubted whether sugar-cane is indigenous to thiscountry or not, we employed Katosa to procure the two varietiescommonly cultivated, with the intention of conveying them to Johanna.One is yellow, and the other, like what we observed in the BarotseValley, is variegated with dark red and yellow patches, or all red.We have seen it "arrow," or blossom. Bamboos also run to seed, andthe people are said to use the seed as food. The sugar-cane hasnative names, which would lead us to believe it to be indigenous.Here it is called Zimbi, further south Mesari, and in the centre ofthe country Meshuati. Anything introduced in recent times, as maize,superior cotton, or cassava, has a name implying its foreign origin.

Katosa's village was embowered among gigantic trees of fine timber:several caffiaceous bushes, with berries closely resembling those ofthe common coffee, grew near, but no use had ever been made of them.There are several cinchonaceous trees also in the country; and someof the wild fruits are so good as to cause a feeling of regret thatthey have not been improved by cultivation, or whatever else broughtours to their present perfection. Katosa lamented that this localitywas so inferior to his former place at Pamalombe; there he had maizeat the different stages of growth throughout the year. To us,however, he seemed, by digging holes, and taking advantage of themoisture beneath, to have succeeded pretty well in raising crops atthis the driest time. The Makololo remarked that "here the maize hadno season,"--meaning that the whole year was proper for its growthand ripening. By irrigation a succession of crops of grain might beraised anywhere within the south intertropical region of Africa.

When we were with Motunda, on the 20th October, he told us franklythat all the native provisions were hidden in Kirk's Range, and hisvillage being the last place where a supply of grain could bepurchased before we reached the ship, we waited till he had sent tohis hidden stores. The upland country, beyond the mountains now onour right, is called Deza, and is inhabited by Maravi, who are onlyanother tribe of Manganja. The paramount chief is called Kabambe,and he, having never been visited by war, lives in peace and plenty.Goats and sheep thrive; and Nyango, the chieftainess further to thesouth, has herds of horned cattle. The country being elevated issaid to be cold, and there are large grassy plains on it which aredestitute of trees. The Maravi are reported to be brave, and goodmarksmen with the bow; but, throughout all the country we havetraversed, guns are enabling the trading tribes to overcome theagricultural and manufacturing classes.

On the ascent at the end of the valley just opposite Mount Mvai, welooked back for a moment to impress the beauties of the grand vale onour memory. The heat of the sun was now excessive, and Masiko,thinking that it was overpowering, proposed to send forward to theship and get a hammock, in which to carry any one who might knock up.He was truly kind and considerate. Dr. Livingstone having fallenasleep after a fatiguing march, a hole in the roof of the hut he wasin allowed the sun to beat on his head, and caused a splittingheadache and deafness: while he was nearly insensible, he feltMasiko repeatedly lift him back to the bed off which he had rolled,and cover him up.

On the 24th we were again in Banda, at the village of Chasundu, andcould now see clearly the hot valley in which the Shire flows, andthe mountains of the Manganja beyond to our south-east. Instead offollowing the road by which we had come, we resolved to go southalong the Lesungwe, which rises at Zunje, a peak on the same ridge asMvai, and a part of Kirk's Range, which bounds the country of theMaravi on our west. This is about the limit of the beat of thePortuguese native traders, and it is but recently that, following ourfootsteps, they have come so far. It is not likely that theirenterprise will lead them further north, for Chasundu informed usthat the Babisa under-sell the agents from Tette. He had tried todeal with the latter when they first came; but they offered only tenfathoms of calico for a tusk, for which the Babisa gave him twentyfathoms and a little powder. Ivory was brought to us for sale againand again, and, as far as we could judge, the price expected would beabout one yard of calico per pound, or possibly more, for there is noscale of prices known. The rule seems to be that buyer and sellershall spend a good deal of time in trying to cheat each other beforecoming to any conclusion over a bargain.

We found the Lesungwe a fine stream near its source, and about fortyfeet wide and knee-deep, when joined by the Lekudzi, which comes downfrom the Maravi country.

Guinea-fowl abounded, but no grain could be purchased, for the peoplehad cultivated only the holmes along the banks with maize andpumpkins. Time enough had not elapsed since the slave-trader'sinvasion, and destruction of their stores, for them to raise crops ofgrain on the adjacent lands. To deal with them for a few heads ofmaize was the hungry bargaining with the famished, so we hastened onsouthwards as fast as the excessive heat would allow us. It wasimpossible to march in the middle of the day, the heat was sointolerable; and we could not go on at night, because, if we hadchanced to meet any of the inhabitants, we should have been taken formarauders.

We had now thunder every afternoon; but while occasional showersseemed to fall at different parts, none fell on us. The air wasdeliciously clear, and revealed all the landscape covered everywherewith forest, and bounded by beautiful mountains. On the 31st Octoberwe reached the Mukuru-Madse, after having travelled 660 geographicalmiles, or 760 English miles in a straight line. This wasaccomplished in fifty-five travelling days, twelve miles per diem onan average. If the numerous bendings and windings, and ups and downsof the paths could have been measured too, the distance would havebeen found at least fifteen miles a day.

The night we slept at the Mukuru-Madse it thundered heavily, but, asthis had been the case every afternoon, and no rain had followed, weerected no shelter, but during this night a pouring rain came on.When very tired a man feels determined to sleep in spite ofeverything, and the sound of dropping water is said to be conduciveto slumber, but that does not refer to an African storm. If, whenhalf asleep in spite of a heavy shower on the back of the head, heunconsciously turns on his side, the drops from the branches makesuch capital shots into his ear, that the brain rings again.

We were off next morning, the 1st of November, as soon as the daydawned. In walking about seven miles to the ship, our clothes werethoroughly dried by the hot sun, and an attack of fever followed. Werelate this little incident to point out the almost certainconsequence of getting wet in this climate, and allowing the clothesto dry on the person. Even if we walk in the mornings when the dewis on the grass, and only get our feet and legs wet, a very uneasyfeeling and partial fever with pains in the limbs ensue, and continuetill the march onwards bathes them in perspiration. Had BishopMackenzie been aware of this, which, before experience alone hadtaught us, entailed many a severe lesson, we know no earthly reasonwhy his valuable life might not have been spared. The differencebetween getting the clothes soaked in England and in Africa is this:in the cold climate the patient is compelled, or, at any rate,warned, by discomfort to resort at once to a change of raiment; whilein Africa it is cooling and rather pleasant to allow the clothes todry on the person. A Missionary in proportion as he possesses anathletic frame, hardened by manly exercises, in addition to his otherqualifications, will excel him who is not favoured with such bodilyendowments; but in a hot climate efficiency mainly depends onhusbanding the resources. He must never forget that, in the tropics,he is an exotic plant.

CHAPTER XV.

Confidence of natives--Bishop Tozer--Withdrawal of the Mission party--The English leave--Hazardous voyage to Mosambique--Dr. Livingstone'svoyage to Bombay--Return to England.

We were delighted and thankful to find all those left at the ship ingood health, and that from the employments in which they had beenoccupied they had suffered less from fever than usual during ourabsence. My companion, Thomas Ward, the steward, after havingperformed his part in the march right bravely, rejoined his comradesstronger than he had ever been before.

An Ajawa chief, named Kapeni, had so much confidence in the Englishname that he, with most of his people, visited the ship; and assertedthat nothing would give his countrymen greater pleasure than toreceive the associates of Bishop Mackenzie as their teachers. Thisdeclaration, coupled with the subsequent conduct of the Ajawa, wasvery gratifying, inasmuch as it was clear that no umbrage had beentaken at the check which the Bishop had given to their slaving; theirconsciences had told them that the course he had pursued was right.

When we returned, the contrast between the vegetation about Muazi'sand that near the ship was very striking. We had come so quicklydown, that while on the plateau in latitude 12 degrees S., the youngleaves had in many cases passed from the pink or other colour theyhave on first coming out to the light fresh green which succeeds it,here, on the borders of 16 degrees S., or from 150 to 180 milesdistant, the trees were still bare, the grey colour of the barkpredominating over every other hue. The trees in the tropics herehave a very well-marked annual rest. On the Rovuma even, which isonly about ten degrees from the equator, in September the slopes upfrom the river some sixty miles inland were of a light ashy-greycolour; and on ascending them, we found that the majority of thetrees were without leaves; those of the bamboo even lay crisp andcrumpled on the ground. As the sun is usually hot by day, even inthe winter, this withering process may be owing to the cool nights;Africa differing so much from Central India in the fact that, inAfrica, however hot the day may be, the air generally cools downsufficiently by the early morning watches to render a covering oreven a blanket agreeable.